Page 101 of The Hunter
Morley snorted and swayed. “He said she’s with bloody Blackwell.” Morley’s eyes shuttered, then snapped open. “He’ll keep her safe… though you were a fool to leave her alone with him.” His expression twisted into something bitter, and he thrust the weapon forward.
Argent didn’t find it at all unmanly to flinch.
“He’s probably squirreled her away to his fucking castle in Scotland… and married her,” Morley slurred bitterly.
Jesus Christ, Argent didn’t have time for a history lesson. Millie,hisMillie, was in danger. Despite his many contacts, Blackwell may not have any idea that Dorshaw had escaped, that he was descending on his home. And, though there was no place more secure save Buckingham Palace, itself, Argent couldn’t breathe. And didn’t think he’d breathe again until Millie was in his arms and Dorshaw was in the ground. Not specifically in that order.
“Hold still!” Morley barked.
Argent hadn’t moved a muscle. He was wasting precious time. He had to go. Now.
“I said stop where you are!” The chief inspector made an animal noise of pain, doubling over his injured arm but valiantly keeping his pistol trained. Obviously, his vision swam from shock or blood loss.
“Let. Me. Go,” Argent warned quietly, remaining absolutely motionless.
“Never,” the man croaked, before falling to the ground in a dead faint, a pool of blood collecting around his shoulder.
Argent would never be able to tell why he did what he did next, but in a split decision, he pulled the rope next to Thurston’s desk on the way out, which would bring the staff from the basement. It was the best chance Morley had at survival.
And as Argent slid back into the shadows, jumped the fence, and ran for the Blackwell estate with desperation filling his lungs upon every breath, he knewhewas Millie’s best chance.
An icy dread stole through his entire body; a sense of impending catastrophe gathering in the very air that whistled past his ears told him that he might already be too late.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
Chaos reigned at the Blackwell household. A dozen men gathered in the yard drawing the notice of curious neighbors. One of them opened the gate as Argent shoved his way through the gathering onlookers, and pounded up the drive at a dead run. A heavy weight burned within him, that sense of impending doom flaring into a frantic knowledge.
Bursting through the front entry, he bounced two men off the walls in his haste to get to the parlor. “Millie?” His heart beat her name, though even as he dashed into the room and searched every face, a part of him knew he wouldn’t find her.
Farah held a sobbing Jakub to her breast, stroking his hair as silent tears rolled down cheeks pale with worry. A harried Gemma bounced Blackwell’s fussy daughter, her own tears spilling onto the child’s dress. Murdoch, Blackwell’s grizzled Scottish steward, sat in the corner holding a bottle of Ravencroft’s finest whilst his lover, Gregory Tallow, held pressure to a bleeding torso wound.
“Where is she?” Argent bellowed.
“Argent.” Blackwell’s cool, dark voice behind him preceded the man’s gentle hand on his shoulder.
Strengthened by desperation, Argent turned on Blackwell and shoved him against the far wall, blocking out the varied sounds of shock and dismay. “Where. Is. Millie?” Argent slammed him again for emphasis.
Blackwell put up a hand, staying the approaching men drawing their weapons. “It’s only been a matter of minutes. I’m gathering men to search for her, Dorshaw took her from Hyde Park. He can’t have gone far.”
Argent stepped away with a desperate sound, took two paces, pulled at his hair, and then turned back, landing a hook to the jaw that not even Blackwell could have seen coming. “How could you let her out of your sight?” He swung again, but someone grabbed his wrist. He threw the bastard off, lunging for Dorian, only to be grappled by two men, one on each arm. A third, the one he’d tossed aside, snaked a thick elbow around his neck from behind, putting pressure on his throat.
The monstrous arm could only belong to Frank Walters, one of the biggest men alive, and famously a gentle giant, his wits having been stolen by one too many bashes to the head in prison.
Another of Blackwell’s men seized his middle. And still it took all their strength to keep Argent from tearing the Blackheart of Ben More to shreds.
Argent had helped to train these men, this underworld army, and he’d never regretted anything more in his life. “You had one job,” he yelled. “To keep heralive. How the bloody hell did she get into the park?”
“’Twas my fault, Argent,” Murdoch confessed through his gray beard. “I didna see him coming at me until he nigh well skewered me. I lost yer woman. I’m damned sorry for it.”
“H-he needs a doctor,” Tallow stuttered. “He’s losing too much blood.”
“One’s been sent for,” Farah said.
Dorian swiped at the back of his split and bleeding lip, his disfigured face contorted into an ugly sneer. “You’ll answer for that,” he vowed, but then he glanced past Argent toward his wife, and a grim sort of understanding settled upon his cruel features. “But it’ll wait until after we get your woman back.”
“If anything happens to her I swear to Christ, I’ll—”
“Stop it, all of you,” Farah ordered from behind him. “You’re upsetting the children.”
